


coming back to the why

by resistate



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friendship, Gabriella Papadakis in a Suit, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Softness, Yeehaw Dance Songs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 08:39:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18091070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resistate/pseuds/resistate
Summary: Scott’s reasons for coming back aren’t pure. Worlds 2017.





	coming back to the why

**Author's Note:**

  * For [revolutionary_daydream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionary_daydream/gifts).



> For nikki, who wanted Tessa braiding Scott's hair <3
> 
> Thank you to @/anathefangirl and @/tessavirtch for looking this over and being supporting and reassuring and all around amazing <3

//

Two hours into the post-Worlds banquet he’s supposed to be attending but isn’t, Scott gets a message from Tessa.

_Afterparty at yours? Just me and Gabi; she needs cheering up. I don’t know where Madi’s got to. You can say no if you want!!_

He wants to say no. If it was anyone other than Tessa asking, he’d say no. It is Tessa asking, so he taps out _yeah, sure_ , adds a smiley face that he’s not really feeling, and hits send. He gets up to unlock the door and while he’s up he drags the armchair into the corner to clear some space for if Tessa and Gabi want to dance. Tessa almost always wants to dance. Then he flops back onto his bed and checks his phone. _See you in five or ten_ , Tessa’s written. _Make sure you’re decent, yeah?_ He’s sure she’s only said it to make him crack a smile, but it works. He’d thought he might be able to face the banquet, earlier; he’d even dressed for it before realising actually, he didn’t have to go and that not going was a corner he could reasonably cut. JF would be proud, or something. He’s still in his dress pants and shirt from earlier so all he really needs to do is fix his tie and tuck in his shirt. He shrugs on his jacket for good measure and then decides to put on his dress shoes, purely for comic effect.

He’s received a bunch of messages from people, some of them friends, saying they’re sorry he’s not feeling well, that they’re missing him at the banquet, that they hope to catch up with him tomorrow before he leaves. Scott hasn’t responded to any of them. The thing about grief, he’s come to realise, is that it makes you selfish. JF says that’s okay, but then JF would say that. Scott doesn’t want it to be okay. Right now more than ever he wants to be a better friend, not a worse one. All the same, he’s glad that he and Tessa get their own rooms as a perk of one of Tessa’s sponsorships. He can hide out, avoid almost everyone, and not have to worry about pretending to be okay for the sake of a roommate.

There’s a knock at the door and Tessa and Gabi sweep in, dressed to the nines. Scott waggles his eyebrows and strikes a pose, hand on hip, and Tessa giggles. Gabi stares at him for a moment before laughing politely. Scott belatedly remembers that Gabi hasn’t hung out with him all that much off the ice and he dials it back a couple of notches by cutting out the eyebrows and losing the hand on the hip. He smiles at Gabi and Gabi smiles back, a genuine smile that makes Scott feel like he’s accomplished something.

Tessa clears a spot on top of the dresser and deposits the bottle of alcohol and accompanying glasses she and Gabi have apparently nicked from the banquet. Then Tessa kicks off her heels and flops on the bed next to Scott. Gabi hangs back, but Scott holds out an arm and she comes over and sits on his other side. Scott knocks his shoulder into Gabi’s, lightly. ‘What’s up, buttercup?’

Gabi mumbles something and Scott’s about say he didn’t catch that when Tessa stage-whispers, ‘Boy trouble.’

Gabi immediately buries her face in her hands, so Scott doesn’t even have to try to hide his grin. ‘Gotta watch out for boys,’ he agrees. ‘We’re definitely trouble.’

‘Girls are not any better,’ Gabi says darkly, and Scott’s outnumbered so he’s not gonna comment on that.

Tessa takes hold of his hand then, squeezing gently. She wants to be here for Gabi, probably, but the pinched expression she’d worn when she’d come in had made Scott think she was close to her limit for being around people. Scott has been called on to play the part of reinforcements, Tessa had said as much in her message, and while he’d be the first to admit he’s not at his best, at least he’s had some time this evening to unwind. Tessa’s been on duty all day. He squeezes Tessa’s hand and keeps hold of it, smooths his thumb back and forth against the jut of bone at her wrist.

‘Well,’ he announces, peering at the bottle on the dresser, the label too far away to make out, ‘what we have on offer is alcohol—’

‘—champagne, even,’ supplies Tessa.

‘What we have on offer is champagne, dancing, and television.’ He unmutes the tv and flicks through a couple of channels. ‘How’s your Finnish? We have, let’s see, talking heads, bridges of all kinds, more talking heads, your obligatory American blockbuster—’

 _Pacific Rim_ has been on local television twice this week and Scott might have been watching it for the third time when Tessa had messaged just for the sake of familiarity, except that he hasn’t been able to focus on anything tonight, too conscious that it’s the end of the season; that their planned comeback is more than half over already; that time is galloping away from him.

‘My Finnish is not great,’ Gabi says. ‘I think—dancing. I will dance with Tessa while you drink champagne, because we have had champagne already and you have not. And then you should dance too, again because we have had some dancing already and you have not.’

Tessa laughs, which makes this whole evening worth it as far as Scott’s concerned. Gabi borrows Scott’s phone and scrolls through his party playlists before settling on a country one that makes Scott wince. It’s in his phone as ‘yeehaw dance songs’ courtesy of one of his friends who thinks he’s funny, but it could double as the soundtrack to every local wedding Scott’s attended in the past five years. Gabi’s already chortling, though, so Scott lets it lie. She does something with his phone to get it to play through the television speakers and he shakes his head because kids these days and their technology. Gabi’s one of the good ones though because she sets the volume to a level that won’t disturb their neighbours, most of whom are probably skaters and therefore not interested in anything at the end of a long season except partying, and god, Scott has never felt more old than he does right now.

Tessa pops the cork on the bottle and pours each of them a glass. Scott downs his champagne and watches Tessa and Gabi dance. Gabi’s wearing a snazzy black suit and some sort of barely-there top, also black. She abandons her jacket once she and Tess really get moving, and Scott can appreciate Gabi’s abs intellectually, or whatever, but they don’t make him feel anything like the way Tessa’s abs do when he’s in the mood to let himself feel things about Tessa. Tessa’s dress tonight is deep blue, cut low in the back rather than the front, with a halter top and a skirt that swirls around her like a summer storm when she dances. She’s worn it once before this season, at Skate Canada. He remembers dancing at the banquet with Tessa, not wanting to let go, and Tessa telling him he didn’t have to, that he could dance with her all night if he needed to.

Tessa’s expression has softened in the time she’s been dancing. She glows, the blue of her dress incongruous against her peach skin and serving to make Scott realise how much he wants to touch her, to feel the soft ache of her skin against his. There have been compelling reasons why he shouldn’t, though, not when they’re not on the ice. Or, there have been reasons.

The bubbles in the champagne prickle the inside of his throat, and he swallows hard against the sensation. He gets up and fills Gabi and Tessa’s glasses again and they drink to the end of this season and to the beginning of the next season, an Olympic season. Then Gabi and Tessa pull him onto the dance floor, the space between the foot of the bed and the door. He dances a little with Tess, and a little with Gabi, and a lot with Tess and Gabi. He keeps an eye on Gabi while trying not to make it seem like that’s what he’s doing. She seems—okay. Not great, but okay.

Gabi has an early flight the next day, so she says her farewells after a couple more songs. She hugs Tessa and Scott, and Scott tells her not to be a stranger, and Gabi gives him another one of her genuine smiles. His own smile feels strained, but Gabi doesn’t seem to notice.

Then it’s just him and Tess, and the weight that’s been sitting on his chest has been lifted and he can inhale again. He exhales and holds out a hand to Tessa. She takes it. Her free hand presses against the back of his head, palm heavy on his neck and fingers tangled in his hair. His free hand finds her lower back on instinct, the heel of his palm pressing into the dip where her spine sits, fingers reaching for the curve of her waist. The music filling the room is fast-paced and relentlessly cheerful, but he ignores it, lost in a world that’s just the two of them.

Tessa releases his hand and the loss of contact hits him harder than it should, right in the chest, but then both her hands are wound around his neck and she’s closer to him than she was a moment ago. He wraps both his hands around her waist and draws her closer still.

‘I missed you,’ she says, and rests her head against his chest.

‘It’s only been a couple of hours,’ he says, touched.

‘Still,’ she says, and he can’t argue with that.

They sway slowly back and forth, barely dancing. Tessa is warm and pliant against Scott, fitting neatly into all his gaps. She fills his arms and the hollow of his chest and the ache inside him he knows he shouldn’t rely on her so heavily to patch over but does anyway. The playlist ends and the silence that follows is loud until quiet sounds start creeping in: the drag of his shoes across the pile of the carpet; the crisp fabric of his shirt rumpling under Tessa’s cheek. Tessa’s soft, steady breaths. He’s grateful to her in this moment, so grateful to have been given the chance to be present not just for Gabi but for Tessa.

‘Thank you,’ he says. His voice is loud, louder than he was expecting, and he winces. Tessa soothes a thumb over the back of his neck. Her voice is quiet and laced with exhaustion when she asks him what for. She must already know what for, and why, and the answer to every other question under the sun, but she deserves to hear him say it. She’s been strong for him this season and he knows it, and he’s humbled that she’s letting herself be soft tonight, with him. He struggles to find the right words, because he wants Tessa to know how much she means to him. He wants her to know she’s everything.

‘For letting me help,’ he says finally. ‘For asking me to be here.’ Tessa knows the next one already; he’s been telling her all season, whispering it into her ear every time she seems to need to hear it; breathing it into her chest at the end of every free dance. That doesn’t mean it’s any less true right now, or any less heartfelt. ‘For being here for me.’

‘Any time,’ Tessa says, so softly he can barely hear. She yawns into his chest. She doesn’t make any move to leave, though she’s clearly tired, and Scott doesn’t want her to go. ‘More champagne?’ he asks. Tessa nods, and he pulls away, reluctantly, and splits the last of the bottle between their two glasses.

‘To us,’ Tessa says, and her voice is quiet but sure. ‘To us,’ Scott agrees. They tap their glasses together.

They settle on the bed to finish their champagne, side by side with their backs against the headboard. Tessa’s head is resting against his arm and her hand is heavy on his thigh and Scott’s grateful all over again that she’s here, grounding him. He presses buttons on the remote until stations start showing again and flicks idly through the channels. Tessa touches his arm and he stops on a show about gardens or greenhouses or something. Scott can’t tell; it’s in Finnish. He finishes his glass and the alcohol seems to hit him all at once as the last of the champagne slides down his throat. He slides down with it, centimetre by centimetre, until his head rests in Tessa’s lap. She cards her fingers through his hair and Scott relaxes into her touch.

‘I’m not—none of this is about yesterday,’ Scott says. He feels he should explain why he’d bailed on the banquet and it’s easier like this, eyes closed and just a little drunk on champagne and Tessa. Tessa laughs softly and Scott bumps his nose against the inside of her thigh in admission that yeah, a little of it probably was. He’d put a hand on the ice in their free dance yesterday and it hadn’t cost them anything but a world record, maybe. It hadn’t cost them the gold. No mistakes he’s made on the ice have cost him Tessa, ever.

They keep a companionable silence while the television drones on. Scott had no idea about the number of different lichens in Finland but he supposes it makes sense, what with how far north they are.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tessa says, after a couple of minutes. The focus of the program has moved from northern to southern Finland; Scott can tell because there’s a map. Apparently, there are swamps in southern Finland. Apparently, these swamps contain cloudberries, and that makes sense too, because Scott doesn’t think he’s ever seen cloudberries anywhere south of Lake Superior, back home. He thinks they’re cloudberries, anyway. Cloudberries remind him of plumper, paler raspberries, and the fruit of the wild plant on the screen has the same dusky sheen, the same variation of colour, from pale peach through to amber. He remembers picking and eating cloudberries under blue, blue skies on summer camping trips up north and being surprised that they didn’t taste like raspberries. They were tart on his tongue; he remembers that.

It’s not her fault, people dying is not Tessa’s fault, and he’s sick to death—he’s sick of everyone who’s not Tessa saying they’re sorry. It’s different with Tessa. Tessa’s been here for the ugly parts, the day-in-day-out parts, not the pretty parts where other people mouth platitudes and get to feel like they’re helping him cope.

This isn’t fair; Scott knows it isn’t fair. He knows the people around him care about him. But it sits with him right now, regardless: the bitterness and frustration. JF says it will pass, and Scott can only hope he’s right.

‘Thanks,’ he says.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

He remembers searching for cloudberries, wanting to find them and roll them around on his tongue and then bite into them to make the juice burst from the skin of the fruit, impatient. He wants to talk to Tessa, but not about grief, not about loss.

‘I want to talk about us,’ Scott says.

Tessa’s hands in his hair go still. Then her fingers start moving again, but differently. Scott doesn’t know what she’s doing at first and then all of a sudden, he does. ‘Are those—are you braiding my hair?’

‘I have to take advantage while it’s still long,’ Tessa says, matter-of-factly. They’re silent as her fingers divide his hair into small sections before weaving it together again.

‘So, talk,’ says Tessa, finally. On the surface her voice is easy, agreeable; like she’s ready to hear anything. Scott can make out the nervous undertone, though, and her hands are moving very quickly.

He’s afraid. Afraid that this isn’t the right time to have the conversation he needs to have; afraid that it will never be the right time. Afraid that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this, and that he’s picked the wrong way, the wrong time, the wrong everything. But he’s nothing if not an expert in working through fear, and he knows he needs to do this before they get on a plane tomorrow. He needs to do this before they go home and take some time away from each other to reconnect with family.

Tessa’s always been his family.

‘Your mom taught me how to do braids, do you remember?’ says Scott.

Tessa laughs. ‘What? No, I don’t remember that.’

‘It’s true,’ he insists. ‘We were at—some competition, I can’t remember. It was out west, I think. You were feeling the pressure, we were both feeling the pressure, but you were getting quieter and quieter and I was getting louder and louder, and Kate was with us, and you needed your hair done before we skated and she showed me how to do your braids. And I did them and you didn’t like it and then Kate made a face like maybe _she_ didn’t like it and that was _it_.’

He laughs, remembering how indignant Tessa had been. ‘You said they were the best braids you’d ever had, but really they must have been pretty bad because Kate, you know how she never wants to tell anyone they’re actually wrong, well, Kate took out them out and re-did them.’ Tessa doesn’t say anything, and Scott keeps talking, just to fill the silence with something, anything. ‘Anyway, it comes in handy with my nieces,’ he says. ‘Danny’s youngest was in tears one time because she wanted her hair in braids, it was the most important thing in the world to her right then, so it was Uncle Scott to the rescue.’

‘I don’t remember that,’ says Tessa, wonderous. ‘I mean—I remember you braiding my hair—at some party in Canton, maybe? As a joke? But I don’t remember that at all.’

‘Well, almost twenty years, right? There’s bound to be some memory loss. Ask your mom,’ says Scott. ‘She’ll back me up.’

‘She would whether it happened or not,’ says Tessa.

‘Harsh, Virtch,’ says Scott.

‘She didn’t teach _me_ ,’ Tessa says. ‘I had to learn at Brownies. I remember there were scarves involved. And chair legs.’

‘I bet you got a badge for that,’ says Scott.

‘Probably,’ agrees Tessa. ‘I got a badge for everything.’

‘Yeah, well, you were better than me at everything,’ says Scott, and it’s a stupid thing to say, he knows it’s a stupid thing to say; it’s not even something he really believes in when he’s not in a funk. He is in a funk though, and Tessa knows it, and she pulls him up on what he said because she’s the only person who’s acting completely normal around him right now.

‘I’m not giving you a pass on that bullshit, Scott. I _will_ make you wear these braids in public and Marie _will_ laugh at you.’

‘Marie laughs at me anyway,’ says Scott, because she does; she laughs at absolutely everything. It’s her most endearing quality among many endearing qualities. He knows how lucky they are in their coaching team now. They’ve had the worst, and Marie-France and Patch are the best.

‘True,’ says Tessa.

They’re both silent. Tessa’s fingers move through his hair, taking braids out, putting braids in, taking braids out again, over and over.

‘That’s not what you wanted to talk about,’ Tessa says finally.

‘No,’ Scott says. It feels almost like a tangible thing now, everything he’s not saying. ‘Tess—’

He’s good at talking, usually, and the champagne and that it’s _Tess_ should be helping, but they’re lodged hard in his throat, for some reason: all the things he wants to say, all the things he wants Tessa to understand.

‘You said you wanted to talk about us,’ she says. ‘Is it—should we—’

‘—No,’ says Scott, quickly. This is between him and Tess. They might have to have a conversation with JF later, if—if. But not right now.

‘Okay,’ says Tessa, almost briskly. She rests her hands on his head. ‘Good or bad?’

‘Um,’ says Scott. ‘I’ll leave that up to you.’

Neither of them says anything for a minute. Tessa’s hands are back in his hair, lightly massaging his scalp. ‘This is weird, I’m sorry,’ Scott says.

‘It’s okay,’ Tessa says. ‘I mean, I don’t think it’s weird. It’s us, you know?’ Then, in a rush, ‘What about you, what—’

‘—Good,’ Scott says, before he can overthink this more than he already has. He keeps going, tries to capitalise on the momentum he’s gained. ‘I just—tell me if I should stop talking. Anytime, just tell me, okay?’

He feels Tessa shift as she leans down to place a kiss on the top of his head. ‘Okay, she says.

Scott barrels on. ‘You were saying to the press—I wanted—after the free, I mean. My reasons for coming back weren’t pure.’ Tessa’s hand cups the back of his neck, solid and warm. ‘All the things we’ve said all along, about pushing ourselves technically and artistically, skating together again—those are all true. But they’re not the only reasons, not for me.’ He takes a breath. ‘Tessa. I came back because I can’t live without you. You’re the reason I get out of bed every morning, not just lately but all the time, and I know that’s not fair—I know—’

Tessa tugs gently at his hair and Scott burrows closer.

‘You’re the reason I do anything,’ he says. All he can see is blue, all he can feel is the soft fabric of Tessa’s dress where her hip meets her thigh, and Tessa’s hands on him. ‘You’ve always been the reason I do anything.’

‘Scott—’

‘I love you, Tessa. I’m in love with you. I don’t know—I guess—I guess I don’t want to leave that unsaid. I don’t know if you want more, it’s okay if you don’t want more but I don’t want—I don’t want to have any regrets, I want—’

‘—Come here,’ Tessa says. She takes her hands from his head and pulls him up. Scott goes.

His knees are planted on the bedspread, crowded against Tessa’s knees. He can see every freckle sprinkled across her nose, every fleck of gold in her green, green eyes. He can feel her breath against his face, warm and quick, and he can feel his own anticipation in his heartbeat, in his pulse, in his whole being. He wants to lean forward and press his lips to hers, open her mouth with his tongue, crawl in and never come back out. He doesn’t, though; just runs one hand lightly up and down Tessa’s spine while the other plays lightly at her collarbone. Tessa shivers. Her hands are flat against his tie, pressing it into his shirt. She can probably feel his heartbeat under her palms. It’s all Scott can feel, that and the smooth skin over hard bone of Tessa’s back and throat. Tessa’s eyes dip and then rise to meet his, and Scott doesn’t want to see her say _no, but thank you_ with her gaze before she lets him down gently, so gently, with her words. It’s dark behind his eyelids and safe, but then Tessa’s knee is knocking against his and her lips are pressing a small, soft kiss right below his ear.

‘Hey,’ says Tessa, and it’s like she’s inside his head, her voice is so close. ‘Open your eyes. I need you to see this.’

He blinks, adjusting to the light. He wonders what it is he’s supposed to be seeing. Tessa’s eyes are soft, and her expression is so open it makes his heart clench. He can’t figure out if she looks contemplative, or afraid; apprehensive, or happy. He doesn’t know; he feels like he should know, but he doesn’t—he wants, he hopes, but he doesn’t _know_ , and Tessa will know, so he asks.

‘What—’

‘—me,’ she says simply.

‘Yeah,’ he breathes, so relieved his knees almost buckle. If they did, he wouldn’t even fall, because Tessa has him. Tessa, who’s looking at him the way she always looks at him, like she’s not afraid to show him everything. She’s looking at him like she wants—like she _wants_ , and Scott needs to know, he needs to hear her say it. ‘Are you—do you—’

‘—Yes,’ Tessa says. She leans forward and Scott follows and then they’re kissing, and this is better, so much better than not kissing, because he can _show_ Tessa instead of relying on getting the jumble of words in his head to come out right. He tries, with the way he tugs at her lower lip with his teeth, the way his mouth opens greedily for hers, the way he tries to trace the whole inside of her mouth with his tongue, to show her how much he wants her, wants all of her, wants everything she has to give, but he doesn’t know if it’s enough. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands; they move restlessly over Tessa’s bare back, her bare shoulders, through her hair, soft and a little sticky with hairspray. He doesn’t want to stop, and he doesn’t think Tessa wants to stop, not from the needy little sounds she’s making against his mouth or the way she matches him move for move. He’s underestimated how much it’s taken out of him, though, this year of competition and even this past week; and that’s without factoring in the effort of pushing everything he’s felt for Tessa for so long into one enduring kiss.

He’s panting when they pull apart, shallow breaths that feel like they’re taking everything out of him. Tessa’s breathing hard, too, and she looks as exhausted as Scott feels. She looks the best kind of exhausted; happy on the podium in Vancouver exhausted, but still: exhausted. Like she’s ran a marathon, or maybe just endured a comeback season. Her skin smells faintly of perfume, and hairspray, and sweat, and he wants to stay in this moment forever because she’s so _Tessa_. ‘Rain check?’ he mumbles into her neck. It’s a half-hearted suggestion at best. He doesn’t want to wait, he wants this now, he wants, he _wants_ —

—but only if Tessa does. She’s here, wound around him like a vine, but he doesn’t want to presume. He wants to know. ‘Tess—'

‘—Fuck rain checks,’ Tessa mutters. She fists his hair and pulls him into another kiss. It’s slower, gentler, and he follows her pace gladly even though he wants her more fiercely now that his body is engaged as well as his heart. He wants to savour this, savour _Tess_. He burns everywhere she touches him, and it only makes him hungry for more. His eyes slip closed as he loses himself to pure sensation, but then Tessa pulls back abruptly. The fire cools and his eyes blink open to find finds Tessa studying him. She gently brushes the hair off his forehead, and he shudders, on fire again. She cups his cheek and traces her thumb over his skin, and it feels like a brand. There’s a question in her eyes. ‘Unless—’

 ‘—I’m good,’ he assures her. He fumbles with the skirt of her dress, shoving it aside and cupping warm, bare skin. ‘Can I—’

‘—Yeah,’ Tessa says. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. Scott lifts her and manoeuvres them so Tessa’s on his lap. She wraps her arms around him and buries her head in the curve of his neck. He combs his fingers through her hair, trying to be gentle, before sweeping it to one side and placing a kiss on the warm skin just shy of her jaw. He stays there for a moment, breathing her in. Then Tessa unwinds herself from around his body and sits back, looks straight at him.

‘Shirt,’ she directs, and he takes it off. Then her hands are at his waist, unhooking and unbuttoning, and Scott scrambles to help. He kicks his trousers off the bed, out of the way and Tessa’s hand disappears up her skirt. He’s been half-hard since he’d had his head in Tessa’s lap, breathing her in without half-trying, and properly hard since about a minute after she’d pulled him to her, but now—now—he can’t even see anything except the rest of Tessa’s beauty and strength, and Tessa’s hand is still buried under the folds of her dress, and he’s on the edge of unravelling.

He groans because it’s easier than holding it in, and because he remembers how much Tessa likes knowing exactly how far she’s pushed him; how much farther she has to go.

He’s missed this. He’s missed having Tessa in his life like this. Not that—not that—he wouldn’t love Tessa any less otherwise; he _hasn’t_ loved her any less. He came back to work with Tess every day, and it would have been enough. It has been enough. She’s his partner and his best friend and they’d agreed they weren’t going to keep doing this because it made things too complicated. That was the word he had used, _complicated_ , and Tessa had echoed it. They’d agreed to stop. They had stopped. He’d known in his bones it wasn’t healthy, chasing a connection with Tessa that he couldn’t manage in any other way off the ice. That had been years ago, though. Now they have years of therapy under their belts. Scott has had years of being comfortable in his own skin: of knowing who he is, and what matters, and what he wants.

Tessa drags her hand from under her dress and Scott can’t help the rough noise yanked from his throat any more than he can help breathing. She turns her hand to catch the amber light from the bedside lamp, spreads her fingers slightly. Strands of her juices are strung between her index and middle fingers, glistening.

‘Please,’ he begs, ‘Tess, _please_ ,’ and he’s not sure what he needs more, for Tessa to lick herself clean or for her to let Scott do it. Her eyes meet his and Scott swallows hard, mouth dry. He thinks in the moments that follow that maybe she wants this as much as he does, maybe she misses this too, misses him, because she doesn’t make him wait, not for any of it, just wraps her warm, wet hand around his dick, and then he’s ready for her, barely, and she’s lowering herself onto him, and swears to God that he’s done with thinking forever.

Tessa eyes have slipped closed and she’s biting her lip. Her cheeks are flushed, the prettiest pink he’s ever seen, and he wants to reach forward and undo the clasp at the back of her neck, take her dress off, but then Tessa moves against him and his world narrows to the way she feels inside him and he doesn’t want to wait any longer. He’s been waiting since she’d come to his room and his breath had caught in his throat with how beautiful she was; since they’d rocked back and forth in each other’s arms; since he’d had his head in her lap and her hands in his hair, and that’s only going back as far as tonight. He settles for pushing the skirt of her dress to the side so he can rest his hand on her hip, lightly, and then Tessa opens her eyes and they’re the darkest green he can remember and she’s looking straight at him like she can see everything and she says his name in a quiet, strained voice he hasn’t heard in years. He moves the hand at Tessa’s hip to her cunt and traces circles, a familiar pattern even for being so long unpractised, and after a minute Tessa sighs and settles, taking him deeper. She starts moving, and he does, and then everything is sensory: Tessa’s scent, sweet and sharp; the jut of Tessa’s hipbones under skin damp with sweat; his fingers sliding off Tessa; Tessa’s uneven breaths, punctuated by the only words Scott has left; _love_ and _you_ and _fuck_ and _Tessa_ ; the small, wrecked noise Tessa makes when he hooks his fingers in the halter of her dress and pulls her to him; Tessa’s mouth on his, unrelenting; Tessa’s whole body under his hands suddenly stilling, moving only where she clenches around him, flutter soft; his own orgasm following, sudden and overwhelming.

 

Tessa curls into his side afterwards and Scott drowsily runs his hand over her arm, trying to warm away her goosebumps. He’s too boneless and comfortable to get up and pull the blankets over them, and Tessa seems similarly disinclined to move. ‘We call ourselves world champions, eh,’ he grumbles. It had been over as quickly as it began, it had felt like, and he’s not accepting tiredness as an excuse. He knows he can do better, be better. For Tessa, he’d do anything.

‘Exactly how many compliments are you going to fish for tonight, anyway? And for the record, I loved it,’ Tessa says. She wraps an arm around his waist and snuggles closer. ‘I love you,’ she says a moment later, quick and quiet.

Scott rolls onto his side to face Tessa and pulls her to him. Her nose is cold where presses into him, and he’s starting to feel the chill from his lack of clothing, but he can’t bring himself to care. ‘Love you too,’ he says, and feels her mouth curve into a smile against his chest.

He’s on the edge of sleep when he feels Tessa stir. ‘Shirt,’ she mumbles, and Scott passes a hand along the floor next to the bed until he finds the shirt he was wearing earlier. Tessa takes it and heads off to borrow Scott’s toothbrush.

He tidies up while Tessa’s in the bathroom, clearing away the empty champagne glasses and tossing his discarded clothing in the general direction of his suitcase. He’s turning down the covers when the enormity of what they’re doing hits. This isn’t fucking around. It isn’t kid stuff. It’s him and Tess trying to make it work for real. He smooths the bedsheets with shaking hands and sits on the edge of the bed. His head is still bent when he hears Tessa emerge from the bathroom. He feels the bed dip as she sits beside him and he winces, because while he’s not ashamed to cry in front of Tessa, he hates adding to her worries any more than he has to. Not everything’s about him, though, and he knows if their positions were reversed, he’d want the chance to not feel helpless. He reaches out a hand and Tessa laces her fingers with his. When he’s stopped, she scoots closer and rests her head on his shoulder.

‘It really wasn’t that bad,’ Tessa says, like she might be serious, except she’s not; she’s absolutely being an asshole. He laughs and grabs a tissue from the nightstand for his eyes.

‘How come—’ he starts, and finds he can’t finish. How come Tessa’s never said anything; if she feels the same way then— ‘How come—'

‘You’ve been off your game,’ she says,

‘Hey,’ he protests. ‘Undefeated season.’

Tessa laughs softly. ‘Next season, though. There’s a lot to do next season. I mean, there’s a lot to do now.’

She’s right; of course she’s right. They need to keep thinking about music, costumes, choreography. Creating a series of unbroken moments. They sit together on the edge of the bed. Scott traces his fingertip over a constellation on the soft skin above Tessa’s left knee, going from freckle to freckle to freckle, over and over again. ‘Tell me I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and find this has all been a dream,’ he says.

‘It’s not a dream,’ Tessa says immediately. ‘Tell me I’m not going wake up tomorrow and find you’ve chickened out. Tell me now if that’s going to happen, Scott, because—because—’ her voice wavers but she pushes through, ‘I won’t let you get any sleep tonight. Or ever again, you hear?’

Scott feels that in his chest: the sharp ache at even the thought of letting Tessa down. ‘I’m not going to chicken out,’ he says.

Tessa twists the hem of her shirt—his shirt—in her hands. ‘I mean, you can, of course you can, I just—’

‘—Promise,’ he says. He kisses Tessa, long and sweet, and he’s getting better at this already, he must be, because he thinks this time he definitely conveyed at least a little of how he loves Tessa more than anything in the world.

When they move apart, Tessa tells him she’s going to have a bath. He wants her to stay so he can keep kissing her, but at the same time he knows baths are one of Tessa’s ways of stealing time for herself. ‘Wake me up if I fall asleep?’ he asks. He wants Tessa to know he’s here, that he’s not going anywhere. He wants to know to know Tessa’s going to be here, too.

There’s a pause and then Tessa kisses him gently on the forehead. ‘Of course,’ she says, softly.

He turns off the bedside lamp and the room goes dark except for the spill of light from the bathroom. He hears Tessa moving around and then all he can hear is the sound of running water, rhythmic and soothing. He must fall asleep then because the next thing he’s aware of is a loud silence and something tickling his neck. He squirms until he realises that it’s Tessa, the end of her wet ponytail brushing against him as she leans down to kiss his cheek. ‘Wake up call,’ Tessa whispers. ‘Go back to sleep call, too.’ He smiles and reaches for Tessa’s hand. Tessa gives it to him, and he kisses it, eyes closed, aiming for her knuckles but hitting everywhere else instead, it feels like. Tessa giggles and takes her hand back. She wraps an arm around him, pressing herself into his back. He’s awake now, which is his own fault, but he can’t regret anything. He thinks Tessa falls asleep almost immediately, judging by the way her breathing evens out. He closes his eyes and wills himself to follow her into sleep, into dreams, into the rest of their lives.

// 

**Author's Note:**

> Probably Scott attended the Worlds 2017 banquet but for the sake of argument, friendship, and true love, let’s say he didn’t.
> 
>  
> 
> ‘We have come back to the why a lot throughout this competition, the reason why we decided to come back’ – Tessa Virtue, Worlds 2017 press conference (Ice Dance, after the Short Dance) 
> 
> ‘There were two key factors [about our comeback] for us: one was making sure that our intentions were pure, that we were coming back for the right reasons’ – Tessa Virtue, Worlds 2017 press conference (Ice Dance, after the Free Dance)
> 
>  
> 
> Find me on Twitter: @/mfparaph


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